High-tech airship floats to future

Firm says craft, now prototype, will hold most cargo ever

By RAQUEL MARIA DILLON THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Posted: February 4, 2013 at 3:11 a.m.

JAE C. HONG
Credit: AP
Work is almost done on a 230-foot, rigid airship inside a blimp hangar at a former military base in Orange County, Calif. The Aeroscraft airship, designed to carry cargo, has a shiny, aluminum skin and an aluminum and carbon-fiber skeleton.

The huge, blimplike aircraft flies but just barely, hovering about a dozen feet above the floor of a military hangar during flight testing south of Los Angeles.